La serva padrona

La serva padrona
Opera buffa by G. B. Pergolesi
Title page of a vintage opera program
Description	Intermezzo
Translation	The Maid Turned Mistress
Librettist	Gennaro Federico
Language	Italian
Based on	La serva padrona by Jacopo Angello Nelli
Premiere	5 September 1733 (1733-09-05) Teatro San Bartolomeo, Naples

La serva padrona, or The Maid Turned Mistress, is a 1733 intermezzo by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710–1736) to a libretto by Gennaro Federico, after the play by Jacopo Angello Nelli. It is some 45 minutes long, in two sections without overture, and was written as light-hearted staged entertainment between the acts of Pergolesi's serious opera Il prigionier superbo.

Federico's libretto was also set by Giovanni Paisiello, in 1781.

Performance history

La serva padrona and the opera seria it punctuates were premiered at the Teatro San Bartolomeo on 5 September 1733, the first performances there after an earthquake the previous year in Naples had closed all theatres. Both were written for the birthday of Holy Roman Empress Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel a few days earlier.

Il prigioniero superbo was unsuccessful in its day but has been staged in the composer's home town of Jesi several times and recorded there in 1997, 1998 and 2009, being filmed during the latter year. But La serva padrona was an immediate hit and became its own stand-alone work. Audiences found it appealing for its relatable characters: wily maid versus aging master. More significantly it became a model for the opera buffa genre and a quintessential piece bridging the Baroque and the Classical periods. With a new finale its French version provided the catalyst for the infamous Querelle des Bouffons.

Roles

Role	Voice type	Premiere cast 5 September 1733
Uberto, an old man	buffo bass	Gioacchino Corrado
Serpina, his maid	soprano	Laura Monti
Vespone, his servant	silent actor

Synopsis

Catherine Nelidova as Serpina (by Dmitry Levitzky, 1773)

Part 1 – dressing room

Uberto, an elderly bachelor, is angry and impatient with his maidservant, Serpina, because she has not brought him his chocolate today. Serpina has become so arrogant that she thinks she is the mistress of the household. Indeed, when Uberto calls for his hat, wig and coat, Serpina forbids him from leaving the house, adding that from then on he will have to obey her orders. Uberto thereupon orders Vespone to find him a woman to marry so that he can rid himself of Serpina.

Part 2 – same dressing room

Serpina convinces Vespone to trick Uberto into marrying her. She informs Uberto that she is to marry a military man named Tempesta. She will be leaving his home and apologizes for her behavior. Vespone, disguised as Tempesta, arrives and, without saying a word, demands 4,000 crowns for a dowry. Uberto refuses to pay such a sum. Tempesta threatens him to either pay the dowry or marry the girl himself. Uberto agrees to marry Serpina. Serpina and Vespone reveal their trick; but Uberto realizes that he has loved the girl all along. They will marry after all; and Serpina will now be the true mistress of the household.

Recordings

• Simonetto/Tuccari/Sesto Bruscantini, live in Capri, 1948, Cetra
• Pedrollo/Erato/Bacci, 1949, Polydor Vox
• Carlo Maria Giulini/Carteri/Nicola Rossi-Lemeni, 1955, Columbia
• Leitner/Mazzoleni/Cortis, 1955, Archiv
• Serra-G/Colorni/Rovetta, 1956, RCA
• Ferrara/Anna Moffo/Paolo Montarsolo, 1958 Lanfranchi movie, View Video (label)
• Virginia Zeani opposite her husband Rossi-Lemeni conducted by Singer, 1959, Vox
• Renata Scotto and Bruscantini conducted by Fasano, 1960, Ricordi
• Mariella Adani and Leonardi Monreale, Pomeriggi Musicali del Teatro Nuovo di Milano, Ettore Gracis conducting, 1960, Club Français du Disque; later Nonesuch Records H-71043
• Bugeanu/Petrescu-Cironeanu/Rintzler, 1961, Electrecord
• Maier/Bonifaccio/Siegmund Nimsgern and the Collegium Aureum, 1969, BASF; later Deutsche Harmonia Mundi
• Koch-H/Miljaković/Süß, 1970, Telefunken
• Ros Marbà/Carmen Bustamante/Renato Capecchi, 1973, Ensayo
• Zedda/Celine/Bruscantini, 1974, Vedette Quadrifoglio
• Gordana Minov-Jevtović and Nikola Mitić, 1976, PGP RTB
• Németh/Katalin Farkas/József Gregor and the Capella Savaria, 1985, Hungaroton
• Palmer-R/Julianne Baird/John Ostendorf, 1989, Omega
• Hirsch/Bima/Salomaa, live in Waldkirch, 1990, Arts (label)
• Mason/Bunning/Donnelly, 1992, Meridian Records
• Bezzina/Isabelle Poulenard/Cantor, 1995, Pierre Verany
• Sigiswald Kuijken/Patricia Biccirè/Donato di Stefano and La Petite Bande, live in Brussels, 1996, Accent ACC 96123 D and TDK DVD
• Magnani/Klein/Leal, 1997 Camurati movie, Elimar Produções Artisticas
• Marcello Panni/Scano/de Simone, live in Jesi, 1997, Bongiovanni
• Gustav Kuhn/Antonucci-P/di Stefano-D, live in Jesi, 1998, Arte Nova
• Clemente/Cozzoli/Govi, live in Bitonto, 1999, Kicco Classics
• Dallara/Zanello/Govi, 2006, Tactus Records
• Deliso/Zyatkova/Torriani, 2011, Da Vinci
• Rovaris/Marianelli/Lepore, filmed in Jesi, 2011, Arthaus
• Scogna/Nisi/Benetti, 2013, Tactus Records
• Scogna/Liuzzi/di Gioia, 2017, Brilliant Classics

Scores

The scores of the opera vary wildly. Edwin F. Kalmus has a score with massive omissions, wrong notes, and much spoken dialogue. Boosey & Hawkes has the score in an operetta adaptation by Seymour Barab, with highly simplified accompaniment and much spoken dialogue. Casa Ricordi presents the opera as sung-through and is the version most used in performance today. W. W. Norton & Company includes excerpts of the full score (for strings and continuo) that has numerous melodic differences from the Ricordi edition, but that correlate with the accompanying recording by Siegmund Nimsgern.

Film versions

• Italian director Mario Lanfranchi made an opera-film version in 1958 with Anna Moffo, Paolo Montarsolo, and Giancarlo Cobelli.
• Brazilian director Carla Camurati made a feature film version in 1999 with Sylvia Klein (Serpina), José Carlos Leal (Uberto) and Thales Pan Chacon (Vespone).
• An Australian TV version with June Bronhill aired in 1962.

References

Notes

Sources

• Grout, Donald Jay and Hermine Weigel Williams (2003), A Short History of Opera, Columbia University Press, pp. 229–232. ISBN 0-231-11958-5
• Palisca, Claude V. Norton Anthology of Western Music: Volume 2: Classic to Modern. New York: W. W. Norton, 2001 ISBN 0-393-97691-2
• Warrack, John and Ewan West (1992) The Oxford Dictionary of Opera. ISBN 0-19-869164-5

External links

Librettos

• Federico, Gennaro Antonio (1739). La serva padrona. Intermezzo per musica da rappresentarsi nel teatro formagliari il Novembre 1739. Bologna: Bayerische StaatsBibliothek digital. Retrieved 13 January 2013.
• Federico, Gennarantonio. "La Serva Padrona. Intermezzo in due parti". www.librettidopera.it. Retrieved 13 January 2013.

Scores

• Pergolesi, Giovanni Battista (1757). La serva padrona. Intermezzo del Signore Giovanni Battista Pergolese rapresentato in Pariggi nell' Autunno 1757 (1805 by Auguste Le Duc, reprint ed.). Paris: Radicciotti-Cherbuliez. Retrieved 13 January 2013. at University of North Texas
• La serva padrona: Scores at the International Music Score Library Project